Go Get It

Lyrics
The movie in my mind
It’s playing all the time
And mostly showing scenes from way back when
I didn’t get my way
But in my mind today
I get to do them all over again

Just like a restaurant
I order what I want
And so I make things come out differently
At first it satisfies
But then I realize
The rewrite urge is still right there in me

If there’s something that you want go get it
If it slips away because you let it
Then you’ll never forget it
And you’ll always regret it
Don’t let it
Go
Get it

It isn’t just a lack
That keeps me going back
It’s that I didn’t do all that I could
If I had only tried
With all I had inside
I wouldn’t need a rewrite to feel good

If there’s something that you want go get it
If it slips away because you let it
Then you’ll never forget it
And you’ll always regret it
Don’t let it
Go
Get it

So now I vow to bring
This movie-making thing
To look ahead instead of back behind
When there’s a want I’ve got
I’ll give it my best shot
And maybe then I’ll get what’s on my mind

Perhaps I won’t succeed
In getting what I need
But now at least I’ll know I tried my best
And then I won’t regret
The things that I don’t get
I’ll just begin whatever movie’s next

If there’s something that you want go get it
If it slips away because you let it
Then you’ll never forget it
And you’ll always regret it
Don’t let it
Go
Get it

If there’s something that you want go get it
If it slips away because you let it
Then you’ll never forget it
And you’ll always regret it
Don’t let it
Go
Get it

StoryThis song and the album it comes from were written using Appreciative Inquiry and Internal Family Systems. With IFS, we can talk about different parts of ourselves as if they are separate people. Hopefully that clarifies why these stories at times refer to he, she and we!

As I was pondering different song ideas before I actually started writing the album, thinking about the kinds of things I’d want to get across to kids, one notion that became obvious to talk about was satisfaction and regret. After all, what could be more worth sharing with kids than helping them to learn earlier on than ourselves the kinds of things that can help them avoid regret and live their lives with as much satisfaction as possible.

One of the things — well, one of the kinds of things — that I’ve most regretted was not always really going after things I really wanted. I thought about how I couldn’t get them if I didn’t try, and how, in not trying, either enough or even at all, I was really letting them slip away. Any regret I felt was a result of my own inaction. Often I’d continue to think about things from long ago, knowing that my mental energy would be better spent on other things, and yet here I was, compelled to keep thinking about those older things. I couldn’t forget them. They kept coming back, almost as if to remind me to not make the same mistakes again with other things I wanted.

At some point, I noticed that a number of words involved in these thoughts happened to rhyme — get, let, regret, forget. Playing with those words, I stumbled on the phrases “let it go” and “go get it” and I thought it would be neat to combine them, so that the word “go” could sound like it went with both phrases at the same time. Next thing I knew, I’d worked out a chorus.

Even after the chorus, this song continued to be particularly odd in that it really sort of wrote itself on its own, at times when I wasn’t even sitting down to write. Half or more of the lyrics wrote themselves while I was sitting in bed waiting to fall asleep. Maybe it’s a little poetic that a song about imagining things would come about close to my own dreaming at night. Its timing for volunteering itself made it the sixth song written for the album.

With the lyrics done, the rhythm of the words in the chorus suggested to me a sort of funky groove. I found myself reminded of “The Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,” written by Huey “Piano” Smith but maybe most generally known through the Johnny Rivers version. I ended up playing with similar New Orleans types of sounds and came up with the tune.

This was the last of four songs in a row where the writing wasn’t consciously done with a particular part of me, but I had a sense that different parts were stepping up to the plate, so to speak, focusing on different and appropriate topics. Later, when it became clear that each part should have its own song, I didn’t even need to do an Appreciative Inquiry for this. There’s a part of me that’s always imagining different ways things will play out — and different way past events could have played out. This song resonated very strongly with him, and he took it on as his. He even believes he wrote it “while I wasn’t looking.” Indeed, with his inclination to imagine at all times, it’s easier to believe this would happen with him than any other part of me!

Share your own stories — of art or other things that have inspired you, of how you came to do something artistic or creative, of how the OHB’s songs have impacted you, whatever you like — at the Fan Clan.

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